


The heat and the heart

by Jitter, Lady_Anaia_Lionel



Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Angst, Gen, Guns, Nemesis - Freeform, cold days spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 15:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2353088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jitter/pseuds/Jitter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Anaia_Lionel/pseuds/Lady_Anaia_Lionel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr Prompt: Result:</p><p>    10. Your muse has angered mine, and my muse is holding a gun to your muse’s head. This is what happens next.</p><p>Siblings fight as you do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The heat and the heart

 

There was a heated look, gun in gloved hands. Breaths shallow and quick, “You knew one day it would come to this.You could not take care of her, could you? Before she took away my Summer Lady? Were you not concerned enough to handle things yourself, or do you enjoy seeing things stolen away from me again and again?”

"You are out of your MIND, Titania!" Mab was standing perfectly still. "Do you not see? Do you not feel that whatever happened to Aurora, to Maeve has tainted you as well? Listen to me. Listen. You know what is at stake should there be no Queen of Winter. You know it wants you to waste me and help its purpose." Frost had appeared on Mab’s eyelashes and she sighed "Oh, sister…"

"There will always be a new queen!" Titania barked bitterly. "You know just as I was once a Summer Lady, I climbed up to Queen. You have your new Lady. So well trained and talented by your court." Hand trembled and she glared at her.

"Do not shed tears for me! There is nothing… nothing wrong with me!" How long had she been fighting it off. It’s encroaching touch finding footholds in the mind. The fraying one of a person with a breaking heart. "Things need to change!" She claimed.

"She is a child. You will be entrusting  _ _REALITY__ to a child.” Mab was trembling now. Tears were trying to flow out.  _Hot_  tears melting the accumulated frost on her lashes and in the corners of her eyes then promptly freezing anew. It was crazy how both were a force of nature and yet in each other’s presence, both turned into the per-adolescent girls they had been before they donned their respective mantles. “Stars above, will I be next? Would you even try to control Mab, _Nemesis_?” she was not talking to Titania anymore she called it by its name and Titania gasped. “Try me. I am willing. Try and taint me. Try and assume control of my domain through me and see how well you fare.”

Her hand shook as it held the gun. Staring down at it to her sister. The one who openly cried. Who actually shed tears. Her breath caught when there was the name of what infected her taken in. The Summer Queen suddenly screamed. It was all her and for another moment she briefly shoved it back.

For a brief moment, it was herself, “No!” She screamed so loudly. Taking several steps back and staring at the hand that held the gun. Shaking, so much shaking, “I will not…” She grit her teeth and looked at her sister, “I refuse to let it take you!” She sunk to her knees then, a pleading look.

"I do not want you to die too. I could not bear it…" She felt her body shudder and she whispered pleadingly, "Please… please kill me before I…" She curled forward. Shaking for a long moment with her head to the ground. Hand still clutching the gun.

"No! I refuse to lose another" Mab boomed. "I can  __ help _ _ __ you. I can make it go.” Mab was openly weeping now, her lovely face smudged with dust and frost and tears. “Please do not leave me  too .”

There was silence as Titania’s shuddering form was on the ground. Shuddering slowing as there was a sound that escaped. It sounded like the start of sobbing before it started to become laughter. Soon her form rose a bit, head thrown back in laughter.

So loud, so confident and bitter. It was the kind of laugh that was demeaning to another, “Oh do you hear her begging,  _ Sister _  dear? Do you head your poor sister beg you to kill her when she needs it most? Fighting so hard to keep from losing the sibling that broke her heart.”

The gun was held up, first pointed at Mab who cried and then towards herself, “Would it destroy you more? If I pulled the trigger now? Do you really mean to help her, or are you simply going to think you can take me away from her?” The voice hissed darkly, “What can make the Queen of Air and Darkness break under the pressure? Does she truly care for her sister so?”

"You know well that need it be that way it will be that way." Mab hissed at Nemesis, "You will  _ leave  _ her at once or I shall coerce you. Remember the Leanansidhe?”

Mab’s dress began soaking darkness. It moved from her toes to her hips, coloured her nails, the scleras of her eyes and her hair, snow white and brilliant before, darkened at the roots and continued on until it was black to the tips.  
  
People died when Mab dressed in Black.

There was a dark bark of a laugh at the other, “Oh, but you care far more for this one. I do like her. Such a broken heart of lost husbands and children. Anger and frustration at you. So many emotions that make everything so easy to twist. I will gladly leave her body, when she is lying dead at your feet and her blood pools over your feet.”

Darkness came and Titania’s face gave a look of mock fear. “Oh whatever shall I do?” The fingers took the gun pointed towards herself, right behind the cartilage of the ear. Fingers suddenly cocked it, “Go ahead. Take a step forward. It only takes but a second to pull the trigger. These mortal instruments are so useful. They took out two Ladies in one night.”

A wicked smile shone, not an ounce of remorse there, even if internally Titania was screaming horribly. “Go ahead. See if you can move quicker than my finger.” The hand already had the trigger partly squeezed. It just wanted to see how far it could push the Winter Queen.

It never saw her coming.

Mab.

Magnificent Mab.

Glorious Mab.  
  
She twitched her eye and Titania’s hand froze in a chunk of purple ice. Mab was next to her in an instant, hands pressing on Titania’s temples sending wave after wave of otherworldly cold. Rime appeared on Titania’s hair and lashes as Mab started entrapping her in an icicle. Mab was panting her black eyes oddly luminous. The moment she was sure Titania could not move she punched her hard in the jaw.  
  
"THIS IS FOR MY FRIEND." she cried to the skies with all the rage of her Voice.

Punch.

"THIS. IS FOR MY DAUGHTERS."

Punch.

"AND THIS IS FOR MY SISTER. KNOW THIS ADVERSARY. I AM MAB. THE SUN WILL BURN COLD BEFORE MAB NOT FULFILLS HER PURPOSE."

It had underestimated her. In that moment. The other was supposed to be such a cold logic. The other had even asked for the death of her own daughter. Would do such things that seemed ruthless to others, and generally was.

Yet the hand froze in place, ice filling all the gaps so that it could not move. The cold was there, spilling in and it hurt. It hurt this Summer body and there was an actual sound of pain and attempt to struggle. Hands in such a vice grip to keep the head still.

Movement was prohibited and the being tried to pull together fire before it was struck. Rage filled voice and the sound of damage to the jaw. Something might have broken, but there was blood already pooling in the mouth that was for certain.

And another. Another after that. Rage. Emotion. It had finally been brought out of the other. Was this what it took to break that cold logical control of the other? Blood was dripping out and there was an attempt to spit it out. Likely failing a bit, but the attempt was there. Swelling no doubt was forming as well as a bruise. Ice could burn just as badly as a fire, “It hurts so beautifully, your rage is a thing of art. Please, do hit me again. See how long this body can stand such pain.” It would tempt. Despite the fact that the price of currently holding the body was pain was in for it too. Of course it could leave, but biding ones time for that.

"Her body will heal." Mab replied, " _You_  will not.” Fingers cold and terrible and made of energy on Titania’s temples sank in her skull as if it was made from jelly. Cold. Unbearable cold and darkness. Blood. So much blood. 

 _Focus_   _Mab._

 _This is not Titania right now, Titania cannot feel this._ Her fingers grasped the alien presence, “I HAVE YOU NOW!” she roared and pulled.

…There was a howl of pain from that throat that sounded so raw from the throat of the other. Part of the problem was that the  _body_  felt pain. It would remember every second of it. Every horrible second like the worst nightmare.

The cost of this would be that the Summer Queen was not leaving this unscathed. Not this time. Not like any other time in the past. The being was dragged out causing a scream that was pitched and the body fell limp, panting. 

Whatever had been within the queen was a writhing blackness that refused to take any shape. It was screaming shattering sounds. Anything surrounding it would seem to tremble in its rage.

Mab had been screaming for a while.

The darkness that had befallen her sister was there in her hands, writhing, hissing, twirling. All around them arctic gales moaned and withered and died as Mab’s rage was fueling her resolve to save her sister. With an agonizing cry she started sending cold to her palms, the wispy substance coalescing into coal-black cotton-candy.  
  


Titania felt utter cold. Her form shuddering weakly as it felt like a nail had been driven into her skull, removed, and driven in again. Body shook horribly and eyes squeezed shut. Pain and scarring. This made her shiver more as she could hear the cries and what wisps of the creature in her head had been left was screaming.

It was weak screams, bits that were left behind even as the other thing was dying in the hands of her sister. It was a part of the whole. Whatever was out there was not dead yet. Not by a long shot. She knew that and she swore she heard it promise that it would be back for her somehow. Soon the black mass was no longer fighting… but neither was Titania.

Weakness… that was what she felt. That and the urge to sleep. To get rid of the painful burn of cold over her. Fire… she wanted fire again. Eyes were drooping closed.

"Kill it, Sister." Mab cried, "Do not let it hold on you no longer."

Her hands were now covered in sticky black mass that twitched and writhed and fizzed under her touch, like maggots. She could see Titania was fading fast and gritted her teeth. She gathered her Will and pushed it all in a single word, repeated over and over and over.

"Titania! Titania! TITANIA!"

Everything had been cold. A painful sharp cold that didn’t become dull as the world faded out. No. Her nature was warmth and fire. Of life. This felt like needles biting her inside and out. Her mind felt like claws had been within it, damaging what fragile peace had been made there.

Yes, she had her problems, but she had been working hard to stave it off. Yet it had found its footholds and there she was. Dying to have the beast removed. Oh but she felt so weak. Sleep would have let her escape that stabbing pain that crawled all over her skin.

Sleep would let her see her daughter… her beautiful little Aurora. Would she have forgiven her? Would she let her have wrapped her arms around her once more and held her close?

A question unanswered as the cold roared back to remind her that she still needed to live. It roared her name. Her body was suddenly aware of everything and she let out a scream then. One of pain as she arced her body and then shuddered. Shivering as she pulled together her own power to warm her from the core first and work its way out. Pale eyes stared at her sibling then, “D-did you… really… have to freeze me… sister. I am… f-f-fucking c-c-c-coold.”


End file.
